


Roulette

by cyanocorax



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossdressing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 03:39:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanocorax/pseuds/cyanocorax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Sebastian in Las Vegas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roulette

**Author's Note:**

> idk either man

It’s three in the morning, the breeze is hot, smells of vegetable oil, lights going off everywhere, a thousand wild colors, and Sebastian is stubbing his sixth cigarette out on Elvis’ bum. 

Lazily, he wonders how long it takes a criminal mastermind to order two number fives and a Coke. Knowing Jim, he likely got tired of queuing and decided to sneak ‘round the back, do something terrible to the ingredients. As if they weren’t already bad enough.

Sebastian rattles his crumpled pack. One more left. “Hurry the fuck up, you bastard,” he mutters, lighting it.

Beside him, Elvis moans.

“Still with us, then?”

“Nyerngh…”

The shadows on the rooftop keep flickering, one moment here, the next moment there. In some ways it’s like London, always alive, but not so serious, so grim— something more charming about it, a thief who smiles as he bleeds you dry, and the women, well. Sebastian can’t complain there. He blows another slender plume of smoke up into the smog. America. Terrible country. He loves it, though. 

One of the doors creaks open and Jim steps out, smudge of lipstick still on his cheek, two greasy bags in one hand and a perspiring plastic cup in the other. He’s got his ‘uck’ face on, the one that suggests every article of clothing upon him is going to end up incinerated before the night’s out.

The two bags are set down, shortly followed by the cup. He does a little wriggle with his fingers, snaps, “Give me that,” takes the proffered cigarette, and practically sucks it into himself, and one moment his face is green, the next, red, violet, white. “My, my,” he’s saying, clicking his heels together. “What a mess we seem to be in.”

“Bastard won’t die.” Sebastian retrieves his dinner from one of the bags. Breakfast, maybe. 

“That’s not terribly surprising,” Jim muses. He smokes like a ponce, pinky out. Sebastian always wants to shoot the offending finger off. “Did you try—”

“Of course I did.” He takes a bite of the greasy mess in his hands. Jim grimaces. 

“Eurgh! So indiscriminate.”

“Last week you ate Peterson’s eyeball.”

“That was _different_.”

Elvis makes another noise, sound of a roulette ball tumbling over the edges of the wheel, crackle, crackle, click. Utter silence. Sebastian sighs, sets his meal aside, and puts one oily finger to the man’s neck.

“Well?” says Jim, who’s just finished off the cigarette, and is flicking the filter aside.

“Still kicking.”

“Americans,” Jim grouses, scowling. “Can’t even be trusted to _die_ on schedule.”

 

It’s late in the morning two days earlier, terribly bright, the sort of sunshine you only get in the desert, bouncing off of every surface and crawling into the pavement cracks. Sebastian readjusts his sunglasses, grinds his toe into the dust, looks around. Good spot for a meeting. No place for anyone to hide.

The client is American, talks in big words, glancing at Sebastian every now and then as if to make sure he’s keeping up. Old business partner. Warrants personal attention. Privately, Sebastian can’t wait until Jim gets tired of cheating him for all he’s worth and allows Sebastian to gut him alive, screaming, wonderful.

Fools deserve what they get. 

Jim’s in a good mood. He likes getting out of England on occasion, visit the rest of the empire. He’s got his own pair of aviators on and looks like a Bond villain, hands folded behind his back, ridiculous eyebrows arched. 

The sky is a tired, washed out blue behind him. 

Now, Jim clicks his tongue against his teeth, a signal, now, time to go, time to get to work.

 

It’s midnight and the curtains are drawn back, the city and the desert buzzing beneath them, people shrunk down to their true sizes, comparable to ants but not half as intelligent, and Jim says they need to drive back out into the desert before they leave, at night, no such thing as a clear sky in London anymore, and he hasn’t seen the stars since—

Now Sebastian’s pinned to too-soft sheets and a knife is being held to his throat, the same one he used to cut their rib-eye half an hour ago, and he’s laughing because this is child’s play, and Jim, who looks so serious, still in his suit, still wearing the mask of the businessman, drags the blade down from sternum to navel, and his hands, very white, but pink at the tips of the fingers, impossibly steady, practiced in the art of torture.

“Careful,” Sebastian says. “Wouldn’t want the cleaning ladies asking questions.”

“You could keep them quiet,” Jim muses. “If they do.”

Sebastian’s skin makes a little crackle of protest as it’s split, but the rest of him is silent, expectant, accustomed, and now there is a mouth pressed to the wound, eating him alive, and some things don’t change, no matter where why when.

 

Noon on the Strip, heat crackling off of the asphalt. Jim adjusts his tie for him and is almost nice about it, only digs his nails into Sebastian’s throat a little. There’s still sand clinging to their trousers; maybe if someone smart enough looked hard enough they’d know exactly where—

“I want to get this over with quickly,” Jim says. “It’s so disappointingly trivial.”

“Alright.”

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to do it bird’s eye this time ‘round, though.” Jim pats Sebastian’s tie so it lies flat against his chest, then steps back. The light’s turned green; they walk quickly across the street, back towards the hotel. “You’ll have to do some knocking on… hm. _Unless_.”

He’s got a funny look in his eye. The porter holds the door for them and a blast of ice cold air comes lumbering out.

Jim says, “What if we got some wires—”

“Sorry, no,” says Sebastian, who can see where this is going.

“Thirty-second story only, hardly a challenge.”

“Nope.”

“I could order you.” Jim presses the lift button with his knuckle. _Ding_.

“Sure,” says Sebastian, trying to inject the proper amount of reluctance into it. He puts his arm between the lift doors, holds them open for Jim to pass through. Jim likes lifts, says there’s an element of roulette to them, don’t you ever think about it, little box on a string and you’re just _dangling_ —

He’s thinking now. About making Sebastian rapel up the side of the Palazzo. Then halfway between the twelfth and the thirteenth floors he does a funny thing with his mouth, almost like a grimace, and shrugs. “No,” he says at last, “pigeons,” and that’s that.

 

Elvis stops breathing a little after five, when the sky has already begun to lighten, a thin pink stripe coming up over the edge of the desert. The fresh carton of cigarettes still has its plastic film on, so Sebastian picks at it with his teeth and nails until it comes away like skin. 

Jim is elsewhere, on the phone, rearranging flight schedules, marking unfortunate chaps for death. Sebastian ignores the chatter and takes out the first cigarette from the box, watches the neat rows disturb. Flicks out his lighter. _Click_.

When he looks up, Jim is staring at him, quite still. Still talking to someone else, but not listening, and it’s one of those rare instances where Sebastian’s mere existence has ceased to be dull, just for a moment— as if the image of him sitting on the corpse of a rock and roll legend smoking a fag is the most interesting thing Jim can bear to notice.

Then it passes. 

 

Their target still has three hours to live according to the schedule, and the night is young, and Jim has decided eating is boring again, so Sebastian puts on his best suit, best tie, clean shirt, goes downstairs, intent on being entertained. 

It doesn’t matter what Jim thinks, Sebastian only ever gambles when there aren’t bodies to be made. Betting and killing, both wonderful things, but the two don’t coexist in the space of his attention. So tonight he stays back and watches, smells the perfume of the women who walk by in their backless dresses, glittering, slender skyscrapers on stilts. 

Something warm presses into the side of his arm. 

“Not participating?” 

Sebastian looks down. She is dark-eyed and red-lipped, smells like rosemary, oozes elegance. 

“No.”

“Pity,” she murmurs, does a funny thing with her mouth, something he’s seen other women try to pull off with less success, a cross between a smirk and a smile and an invitation. “You looked like a winner.”

He loses a few moments watching her drift away, pearls around her neck, hair tucked behind her ears, taking her cloud of rosemary with her, and somehow, in those moments, he ends up sitting down at the table, familiar rub of felt beneath his fingertips, chip inside his palm. Her eyes fix on him again, wide and black.

_Click_.

 

Late afternoon, the crowd is letting off a hungry roar, and Sebastian can barely breathe for the heat. Somehow, Jim remains crisp and clean as he looks through his paper, mutters, “I wouldn’t mind giving every imbecile who named these animals a little present in his morning post…”

The horses are glossy with sweat, the last two stragglers hulking past the wire. A fat man behind them shouts, “Fucking piece of shit!”, tosses his sunglasses into the air.

“Ever feel like scratching the itch, dear?” Jim sounds far away, tucked behind his newsprint.

“Nah.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Jim sings, so Sebastian stamps on his foot, loud enough to make his toes crackle. He’s ignored; they fall silent. The large man who was in their rear is now marching down the isle with a fistful of dollar bills, and Sebastian follows him all the way down into the crowd, musing.

An elbow prods him in the ribs. Jim is nodding at a slender, clean-shaven old man two rows ahead of them. “There’s our boy,” he says. “Mr. Daniel Henry, och, what a terrible alias…”

“Looks like a right old sleaze.”

He doesn’t know why they’re here. Everything’s filthy and the air smells like perspiration. Jim is fickle— sometimes he’d like nothing more than to be the last man on Earth and then there’s today, when he simply wants to drown in people, in noise, in stupidity. Sebastian would like to tell him they could’ve done that in London, but he knows there’s no _telling_ Jim Moriarty anything.

Now the next race is beginning, and their target is saying something to the bloke next to him, but Sebastian can’t hear it because there goes the bell, _And they’re off_!, so he sits back, tries to read the paper over Jim’s shoulder.

“Get your own,” Jim says.

“Bastard.”

“Cunt.”

“Fucking piece of shit.”

Jim flutters the paper, almost smiles.

 

Elvis weighs a metric fuckton, it’s one in the morning, he isn’t paid nearly enough for this, blood all over his Canali shirt, Jesus, what a mess. Sebastian throws his load down onto the rooftop, then drags him by his bejeweled collar into a kneeling position.

“Oogh,” says Elvis.

“Stop your whining,” says Sebastian. “What the hell were you doing in that room?”

“Where’s… yer lady friend?”

Some small, shrinking part of Sebastian is glad Jim wasn’t able to hear that. He hardly needs more encouraging. 

“Answer the question.”

“Heeey, man, I was just… makin’ a few bucks, okay, I don’t know nothin’ about no Mr. Henry, okay…” 

Elvis is dribbling blood all over his chin and neck and front and it’s sticky, still hot. Sebastian must’ve knocked out a few teeth. He flexes his fingers with pride. “If you want to live to see sunrise,” he says, channeling is inner desperado— Americans like that, don’t they?— “You’ll tell me how you got in there.”

“Some… Some fella just said, ‘I’ll give you a grand if you just sit tight n’ room-sit for me,’ gave me his keycard n’ everything, you know how it is…”

“Idiot,” Sebastian mutters, digging in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He gives it a rattle. Half full only, and what if this takes all night, Jesus. He sighs and lights one, tucking it neatly between his lips. 

_Pop_. The door behind them opens. Jim is in a suit again, wig gone, hopefully drowned in gasoline and set on fire, though Sebastian wouldn’t be surprised if he still had the bloody garters on under those trousers. His mouth starts to water. God he’s fucked.

“Aw shit,” Elvis says.

“What a charming pet name,” Jim declares. “Well, well, well. I’ve found our ‘Mr. Henry.’”

“Yeah?” 

“He’s gone and popped himself on a flight to Mexico. Horrible country, but then, aren’t they all. Ever been, Mr. Presley?” Jim paces in loops and parabolas, hands folded behind his back, and Sebastian just notices the way the neon lights are flickering across the rooftop, how they make every change of expression and flicker of muscle become an Event in and of itself. 

“I ain’t… _actually_ …” Elvis starts to say, but Jim cuts him off by standing terribly close all of a sudden and pushing their faces together. 

“You’re exactly what I want you to be, _honey pie_ ,” Jim coos. “And right now, I want you to be Elvis.”

“Okay,” says Elvis, who’s starting to wise up.

“Well!” Jim straightens and takes his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, dabbing delicately at his temples. “All my lovely plans ruined, pity, pity, pity. You can never trust a client for secrecy, my dear.”

“Mm.”

“Only a _professional_ predator can get away with telling his prey he’s coming.” 

“Sure.”

“Do you still have your revolver?”

“Lost it out the window.”

Jim’s face folds into itself. “Well,” he muses. “I suppose we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.” He looks at Elvis, a simpering expression on his face, eyes big and watery. “Don’t worry, pet,” he says. “Sebastian’s an _artist_.”

A worryingly familiar smell fills the air. Sebastian sighs. Jim throws his head back and laughs a mad dog’s laugh, because the King’s just gone and pissed his pants, and God, what a city.

 

An hour comes and goes, Sebastian up a few grand, and he’s yet to cheat, but only because she’s still watching him from across the table, sleeved arms hands propping up her chin, an expression on her face that demands verity. 

When he hits five thousand, she walks around so that she’s beside him again, bends so her mouth is just beside his ear, smell of rosemary around him, inside him. “All in,” she murmurs, and he probably shouldn’t, but this money, it’s nothing, it’s an minute’s paycheck, so he smiles, tosses the chips forward, feels a cool white hand settle in the small of his back.

 

They’re right outside the target’s door, Sebastian’s wristwatch reads eleven at night, it’s time to do the job, and yet he can’t, he simply can’t. 

“Fucking hell, Jim, couldn’t you just for _one evening_ —”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not the only one who likes a spot of light entertainment.”

Jim looks ridiculous, with little bits of putty still clinging to his jaw, and the lipstick not quite cleaned off, and the wig, for heaven’s sake, so all Sebastian can say is, “I don’t even remember packing any of that,” before fingering the revolver tucked beneath his coat and knocking.

 

An hour comes and goes and, turns out, Elvis is a screamer; who’d’ve guessed; fucking belting against the gag, one more tie gone to ruin, coated with blood and saliva. Jim refuses to let him use a proper weapon. “Use your toes, Sebastian, _en pointe_.” 

“Fuck you. Fine. _Fine_.” Another thwack. Elvis yelps. Sebastian can’t think of anymore bones to break, not without throwing the whole package over the ledge, but, perhaps, a little too conspicuous, even for Vegas. But he’s starting to lose patience, and his gut has been rumbling for the past hour, and sod it.

He gives Elvis one more kick in the kidneys before sweeping his dripping wet hair out of his face, turning to Jim, and saying, “I could really do with a burger right about now.” 

 

Ten o’ clock, man next to him has his cards turned over, ace and a jack, and the crowd lets off a little titter of approval, ah, them’s the breaks, lad, and he smiles at the lucky man, gets up, no no, I’m done, feeling lightheaded, same as he did before, years ago, fresh off a discharge and nothing to do but gamble the trust fund away.

She’s waiting at the edge of the crowd when he makes his way out. “Sorry,” she says. Something odd about her American accent. Something rolling, in motion, like a pebble caught beneath her tongue.

“S’ fine,” he says, still giddy, a little, from her or the cards he doesn’t know.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

She looks terribly clean, such a white neck, such a white face, long lashes, slender eyebrows, and he can’t quite put his finger on it, this oddity. And there’s Jim with his steak knives upstairs to think about.

But now her hand is wrapped around his wrist. Step, step, through the crowd like ghosts, the lights are bright, and he can hear the roulette tables above the conversation, clack, clack, clack like bone on bone, and that’s the downside, to ordinary people; if he whispered that into her ear as he fucked her, she’d scream, wouldn’t she, how much he loves the sound of gristle grinding apart.

They’re in a stall in the women’s room, and she has him pinned to the door, and the lock clatters every time they shift; different kind of light above them now, fluorescent, hazy, makes her look like a corpse. “Didn’t catch your name,” he says.

She kisses him, gentle, warm, taste of rosemary coating the inside of his mouth. It gets boring _fast_ ; he pushes, demands—

Her teeth clamp down onto his lower lip.

“Mm!”

Blood. Going down his chin. Interesting. _Fun_. She stands back a little, as if admiring her handiwork, and then all of a sudden she’s laughing, and that sound, and oh Jesus, oh fucking Christ in heaven, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

“Oh, me, oh my,” says Jim Moriarty, reaching down to tear off a neat square of toilet paper and starting to wipe off his lipstick. 

“You… _total… lunatic…_ ”

“Surprise!” 

He suddenly stuffs his hands down his front. Sebastian’s knees feel wobbly. He wonders if he’s been drugged, then decides he must’ve been, because Jim is trying to hand him what look like a pair of jello pancakes, saying “Now, hold my breasts, there’s a dear.” 

 

Eleven o’ one. The door opens. 

Elvis Presley yawns and scratches his inner thigh.

“You room service?” he says.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Sebastian snaps.

“Ooh, good _evening_ ,” Jim coos. 

“I ordered some champagne about n’ hour ago, what the hell’s takin’ so long—”

Sebastian’s ears go hot. “I don’t have time for this,” he declares, and slams the butt of his revolver into the man’s jaw. 

_Chunk!_ Falls like a log. Sebastian nudges him out of the way with his toe and steps inside, listening to Jim follow and shut the door behind him, dress rustling. “He’s not here, you know,” he says.

“I _know_ he’s not here. What’s with…” Sebastian gestures loosely with his gun at the decked out lump on the ground. “…that. Mail order man whore?” He opens the balcony door, glances outside. Nothing. Pops back in. 

Jim is kicking off his heels. “Perhaps Mr. Henry wanted a little ‘good rockin’ tonight’,” he says.

“Fuck. _Fuck._ ”

“Well, I’m just so disappointed,” Jim sighs, flouncing down onto the massive bed. “They should rename this place ‘Heartbreak Hotel’.”

“Jim.”

“‘I’m all shook up.’”

“For fuck’s sake, Jim.”

“What’ll happen if they catch us in here, hmm?” Jim smiles, props himself up on a pillow. “Will we be singing ‘Jailhouse Blues’ before the fortnight’s out—oohrgh, ho ho!” 

Sebastian shoves his knee between Jim’s thighs and pushes down ever harder, so that they sink deep into the mattress. “Shut up,” he hisses, “and tell me what to do.”

Jim only smiles, tilts his head to one side, blinks. Ridiculous, ridiculous. His hands flutter up and down Sebastian’s sides. “‘ _Hold me clooose, hold me tiiiight…_ ’” he sings. 

Sebastian sighs with his whole body, flops down so his nose is nestled in the place where Jim’s neck meets his shoulder. “Why the dress,” he mutters. 

“Why anything, Seb, why anything at all.” 

He puts his hands on Jim’s thighs, starts pushing the silky material up. It snags on something. He rolls his eyes, says, “Fucking garters, you can’t be serious.”

“Goodness, I’m the most serious person I know.”

Everything still smells like rosemary. Jim’s in a stellar mood, the ones that only come once a year, really, willing to let Sebastian be still with him for a moment, stop worrying, stop rattling on. He’s soft and pink and smiles when Sebastian bites down on the shell of his ear, digs his nails into Sebastian’s upper arms, says something about a temper. A hot breeze rolls in, ruffles the sheets and Jim’s ridiculous hair; everything about him is ridiculous, and he’s gone and shaved every bit of stubble from his chin—

“Nyaaaaargh!” _Clunk._

Sebastian springs to his feet. A scented candle rolls past him, having just been lobbed— rather poorly— at the back of his head. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he says, watching Elvis make a mad dash for the doorknob. He strides over, revolver in hand, but knowing he can’t fire, not if he really does want to be singing Jailhouse Blues within the fortnight. It’s the principle of the thing.

He flattens his palm against the door, keeping it shut, and puts his foot onto Elvis’ face. “Get down.”

“Don’t kill me! Don’t… Jesus!” 

“Ow!”

Elvis has grabbed his ankle, flung him aside with surprising strength, and is now leaping for the open balcony door. Sebastian gets up, growls, and he can hear Jim laughing on the bed, head thrown back, no, how did it come to this, but what can he do save chase the runaway bugger across the room and out onto the balcony and _bang_ , door slammed into his face, that’ll bruise.

“I ain’t done anything!” Elvis shrieks, lunging for Sebastian.

The gun goes flying. Sebastian watches, mostly impassive, as it breaks into bits on the pavement below. Goes to show, you can never trust a Glock for quality. No wonder the Americans are so fond of them.

Elvis is trying to clamber over the railing.

“Slow down, there, chum, we’re not finished with you,” Sebastian snaps, and he hauls him back over and into the room, where Jim’s breathless and gasping on the bed, like a beached whale, so Sebastian has to shout, “Get your bony arse off of there and help me tie this bastard up.”

“WhadIdo, wahdIdo,” Elvis is sobbing into the floor. Noisy. Well. Perhaps no one will ask any questions. Jim solemnly hands him a pillowcase.

“Fucker,” Sebastian says, kicking the man in the ribs, “That’s for my face,” and then _schwoop_ , the pillowcase goes over his head, and one quick knock, lights out. He realizes all of a sudden he’s panting, looks up, and Jim’s suddenly disinterested, picking at his nails. 

“Take him somewhere quiet,” he says. Despite the get-up, he looks businesslike again, quietly efficient. Good. _Good_. “I’ll find you.”

“Right.” 

“Use a laundry basket to get him out.”

“Sure.”

Sebastian nudges the prone body at his feet. Kidnapping Elvis, he muses, was certainly not in the job description. 

 

Ten to eleven, watching Jim rearrange his wig outside the lavatories, still somewhat shell-shocked but the feeling has started to fade, replacing itself with annoyance. “Were you trying to prove a point?”

“As if I ever need to prove anything to you,” Jim says archly. “You’ll take my word as gospel _always_ , won’t you darling?”

And it’s irritating, but only because it’s true.

 

Two o’ clock in the afternoon, Heathrow, screaming babies all around and in front, “Why the fuck aren’t we going on our own jet,” Sebastian demands, but Jim isn’t listening, rarely ever is. Outside it’s begun to rain. 

Easy job, Sebastian figures. Over quickly, and then little time to sit back, take in the scenery. 

And Jim’s been so quiet lately. Almost _sane_ , the fucker.

 

Dawn, and some fellow Jim knows in the area tips his hat as he closes the boot of his car, body inside. Clean-up boys are milling about a room in the Palazzo, sucking bloodstains up out of the carpet, but the ones on the little rooftop near the burger chain, those will stay, right until the sunshine bleaches them gone. 

The city lights are all around them, blurring together, converging. Sebastian feels a little sorry they won’t be able to drive out into the desert at night, not anymore, but then, one can’t have everything, not even when one owns the world. 

Jim stretches, yawns, whistles when he walks away, high as a kite, not back to England, not yet, there’s a man to hunt down in good old Mexico. Sebastian follows, dutifully, last bit of a cigarette in his mouth. From up ahead, he hears Jim start to hum.

_Oh, you ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time… Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit…_

_And you ain’t no friend o’ mine._


End file.
